


bits & pieces

by pyrites



Series: hand in hand [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Bisexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Butch Georgie, F/M, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Jon Sims Bi Pride January 2021, Light Angst, M/M, OCD Jon, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, TL;DR - The world doesn’t end when a relationship does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28798701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrites/pseuds/pyrites
Summary: (He hasn’t known what he wants for a very long time. It’s even harder to identify now, shifting through this box of unbroken trust and unable to decide if he would regret throwing it away more than it would ache to keep it.)iii.hardship
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Original Male Character(s)
Series: hand in hand [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095512
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56
Collections: GerryTitan verse, bi jon sims celebration





	bits & pieces

**Author's Note:**

> third installment of a series of fics for the [jon sims bi pride event](https://jonsimsbipride.tumblr.com/)! you guys get it by now.

───── ✿ ─────

He never took Leo’s advice and told people he was in a brawl, but he couldn’t stop her from telling her own stories. Having people he often only _vaguely_ recognized just stroll up to high five him or tell him that he was a ‘badass’ for literally anything was bizarre, and uncomfortable, and Jon never knew how to respond. He didn’t know how to articulate the strange fact that it felt _nice,_ all things considered, when a sizable piece of him still felt like he should be ashamed of something.

The aviators never looked quite right on his face, either. 

He never really wore them, after a certain point. Even in the summer. _Especially_ that summer after graduation.

Jon runs his fingernail over the battered left lens, pulling a faint sound from the deepest part of the scratch. He needs to hear it six times in total before he can set them down on the mattress beside the stuffie, intent now on emptying this shoebox of all its contents and spreading it all out to count it.

There are so many things in here that belonged to Georgie. Idle gifts she gave to him, things he nicked off her that just sort of _became_ his. He still has some of her clothes in his closet. Her gran’s old red cardigan with the golden beading, a black and white striped blouse that never fit her in a way she felt comfortable with. It was the first feminine clothing he’d ever owned, ever worn in public, ever felt safe in.

She never wanted any of it back. He couldn’t quite bear to part with them, either, even after they’d agreed to go their separate ways. He wouldn’t have known where to start with replacing them, but — they _did_ become heavy, after a while. Eventually, he just retreated back into what he knew.

When… _was_ the last time he wore something of hers? Should he get rid of all of it tonight with everything else he’s clearing out, or… or…

He draws his hand along the inside edges of the shoebox, catching the folded edge of something pinned between the cardboard and something heavier.

───── ✿ ─────

It was psychology, mostly. Just some trick to keep his mind in the right place, despite the looming certainty that he has never known what a _right place_ really feels like. Just because he could blame it on another symptom of his OCD didn’t mean it was _obsessive_ in any creepy, stalker-like manner that would make him even more ashamed. It was nothing Georgie didn’t already account for when she told him _let’s take a picture together._ Smiling, _Jon. We’re doing this happy. Come here, I’ve got you._

She’d suggested taking a photo because she knew he would get like this. It was her idea. She knew what he would need in order to get through this, even if _this_ was only happening because their needs had stopped meeting in the middle.

_(It would be a perfect photo if their eyes weren’t so wet. He can still see it when he looks closer. He thinks that part was always a little more important than smiling.)_

Jon didn’t realize what a balancing act it was, at first. They’d made it last so long, they’d managed for— for _such_ a long time, only to lock eyes across their bed one day while they pulled the blanket up together and simply…

Stop. 

And sit down.

And stay very, very quiet.

He’d been the first one to speak, the mountainous weight of such a knowing silence crushing the cowardice out of him for _just_ long enough to crack through her attempted mercy. They unearthed the obvious sitting almost back to back, their hands linked by their little fingers between them. It took them hardly ten minutes to reach the summit, and finally acknowledge that they’d both been hiding the fact that they didn’t pack enough rope to get them back down.

_“I don’t want to do this.”_

_“Me, neither. But—”_

_“No, no, it’s alright. I know. I do know.”_

The photo wasn’t for sulking over. It was a countermeasure; for when he started to catastrophize, to believe she’d only been placating him when she told him she would never forget the first steps he took with her out of the darkness she had to heal the rest of on her own. To think maybe then _all_ of it had been some elaborate attempt at not hurting his feelings with rejection or ridicule she’d been expertly keeping inside behind that stone mask of hers, that July smile she’d inherited from more important people than he was, to feel his heart seize up in terror of seeing it plainly on her face now that she was finally _free_ of him, of—

It was a countermeasure for that. It was smart. He appreciated it.

Except that it really did make him look like an idiot sometimes.

The only warning he was given before the seat across from him was pulled back from the table was a paper plate being set down in front of his messenger bag. Jon looked up with a start, his heart pumping blood backwards for a moment in alarm. The boy from behind the deli counter raised an eyebrow at him, the Irish lilt to his words recognizable and easygoing.

“Whoa there. Jon, yeah?”

Jon cleared his throat, snapping his wallet shut to fold under the wadded sweatshirt he’d been slumping on. “Um— Yes, hello. I… How do— How do you know that?”

The boy gave him a slanting smile. “Written it on at least a score of sandwich wrappers by now, I think. Fine if I sit with you for my break?”

Jon was nodding before he even processed the question. He pulled his bag towards himself, walling himself off even as he made room on the table. The boy sat down and slung his own bag onto the floor, got comfortable before he picked up his sandwich. When Jon didn’t say anything for a long moment, he paused, both index fingers raising off the bread as he cocked a brow again.

“You’ve no earthly clue what my name is, do you?”

“I—” Jon ducked his head to hide his burning face. “…No, I’m sorry. I’m not the best with— with names and faces, even with people I see every day.”

“No worries.” The boy shrugged, lowering his sandwich for a moment to dust his hands off and reach one across the table for a shake. “I’m Delevan.”

For a moment, Jon hesitated in shaking his hand, thinking ahead to the moment Delevan picked up his sandwich again with new germs on his fingers. In the end, he did it anyway. No one else cared about those things other than him.

“Jonathan.” Wait, shit. “…Which you knew already. So, correction. You may actually address me as ‘Blithering Idiot.’”

It got a laugh easily enough, at least. To Jon’s pleasant surprise, Delevan ran his palm over the condensation on his water bottle and dried it with a napkin before touching his food again. He didn’t draw attention to it, and so it must not have been something he expected people to pick up on.

“You’re fine. I probably gave you the creeps, popping up out of the blue like that, all _‘ooh, I know your name, how very suave and not at all unsettling.’”_ He laughed at himself. “I do memorize most of the regulars, if that’s any help at all.”

Jon gave a halfhearted laugh, too. The implications of that were too much to grant him relief, especially when Delevan followed up so fast with a confirmation.

“But… I figure now’s the time to ask if you’re alright?”

“I’m fine,” Jon answered quickly. And then, _stupidly,_ the stock phrase followed: “Why do you ask?”

Delevan took a bite of his sandwich before he answered. “I’ve never seen you in here alone. Usually, you’re hanging about with all them girls, but, um…” He pressed a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. “I _might’ve_ caught it when you poked your head in the other day and did the fastest heel turn I’ve ever seen when you saw them at your table.”

Jon dropped forward to slump on his bag again, a mortified sound muffled into his jumper. “Let me guess. It was cartoonish.”

“Impressively. Person-shaped cloud of dust and everything.” Delevan nodded very seriously, but he didn’t drag out the joke past its shelf life. “I know it’s not really my place to ask—”

“It really isn’t,” Jon agreed, and then cringed into his jumper. Dammit.

Delevan just nodded, still casually working at his lunch. “You don’t have to spill your guts or anything. You just look like you feel sort of outnumbered, so I just thought… you know, one plus one, all that.”

Jon’s brain performed something of a rapid fire virus check, rejecting the instinctive scathing remarks about Delevan’s _staggering ability to do basic addition_ or how presumptuous he _definitely_ was despite being a sorely accurate guesser. Scaring off the innocent cafe boy because he was too committed to his moping would have just made Jon feel like a monster, considering that Delevan had to have been feeling obscenely lonely himself in order to even _bother_ approaching _him._ Of all people.

“I can’t really say you’re wrong,” Jon admitted. “But I also can’t say you’ll enjoy my company for much longer if you really get me talking.”

Delevan waved away his bad faith. “Oh, come on now. The gossip is the only thing that’s kept me half sane, working here. If you want, I’m all ears for the next…” Watch check. “Ten minutes or so.”

Jon nudged his glasses off to rub his eyes, leaving his cheek pressed to the mound of fabric so he could stare at the floor by the far corner of the room. Consider his position, and the risks, and the benefits.

He didn’t know what it was that made him sit back up again and start talking. For all that he was raised to be a private person, there was something appealing about undoing his worries in front of someone who didn’t know him, who he could just avoid by going to a different dining hall on campus from then on if it went badly enough to regret. Delevan ate his lunch while Jon explained himself, only interjecting with prompts if he got frustrated with himself and stumbled.

It was a shorter story than Jon had built it up to be in his head. Not _easier,_ but smaller.

_(The depth of all he had to say about Georgie was never in the ending. He wanted to tell stories about what came before, and just — didn’t.)_

He didn’t bring up the truly personal, private things, like the fact that he and Georgie had never ‘properly’ slept together in all the time they’d been a couple. It simply never occurred to them. Georgie had pointed to _Stone Butch Blues_ for her explanation, claiming connection with the experience of just not _wanting_ to be touched. She struggled to feel tethered to her body, with separating dysphoria from desire or lack thereof, and Jon understood from a distance. It had been Georgie who called off their one clumsy effort to comfort each other with intimacy when curiosity got the better of the both of them, and if she hadn’t, Jon would have not a moment later. It was one of the ways they _were_ compatible, until the things that _drove_ Georgie to that feeling of disconnect began to bleed into other aspects of their relationship. A feeling of _not enough,_ of _too cold_ or _lacking life._

It didn’t mix well with Jon’s feeling of _too much,_ of _friction moving too fast burning up just scalding hot with motion too many thoughts too many thoughts too many thoughts all at once make them stop I’m so sorry._

Not much mixed well with that.

Delevan wrote his phone number down on a clean napkin anyway. Jon must have made a terribly flabbergasted face, because his smile turned a softer sort of mischievous as he stood and passed it into his hand.

“No ailment a new friend can’t fix. In time, of course, but if you don’t find anywhere better to start, I’m always looking for ‘em, too.”

He gave a loose wave as he walked back off towards the kitchen, and that was that. Jon glanced over his shoulder and watched him go, until the only thing that made sense to do was bury his face in his jumper again. There was no reason to _blush_ over any of it, but Jon had found by then that he didn’t need much of a reason to do stupid things. His mind didn’t always _need_ any external factor to take off at warp speed down any horrible, glass-lined rabbit hole it could squeeze itself into. As it stood, he had too many factors closing in on him like booby traps in the old Indiana Jones films, and he was never a very fast individual.

For his mind to keep returning to the thought of how pretty Delevan was just made him want to shrivel up and die, put quite simply. It felt as if it was the first time he’d ever thought it, like he was _only_ thinking it out of lonely desperation. Never mind that it had been almost routine when he and Georgie would come here for them to glance over at the counter and rate his hair on a scale of _‘effortlessly coiffed’_ to _‘he must have been in a rush this morning. Still cute, though.’_

So, for someone he’d thought of in that way to actually _approach_ him with even just an offer of friendship, much less some kind of _interest,_ was downright alarming. Jon debated whether he was a bad person for it; for how fast it happened, for the implication that Delevan had even _vaguely_ fancied him from afar for a _while_ and was only now ‘able’ to say something. It gave this uncomfortable feeling of infidelity even though it wasn’t even remotely applicable. He and Georgie weren’t together anymore. He’d barely even spoken to this boy while they _were,_ but now that they weren’t, he could do whatever he wanted.

He didn’t _know_ what he wanted.

_(He hasn’t known what he wants for a very long time. It’s even harder to identify now, shifting through this box of unbroken trust and unable to decide if he would regret throwing it away more than it would ache to keep it.)_

It was just that Delevan was handsome in a comfortable sort of way, with wavy, dark brown hair that caught red in the fluorescent cafe lights and a scar on his cheek that begged a story be told. He wore hoop earrings just a size too big to _not_ be a subtle shot at flagging, and the top buttons of his work shirt were undone in either some hope of breathing easier away from the kitchen fumes or—

Flirting. He could not have been _flirting._ Except that he was, just a little bit, as Jon found out three weeks later when he finally gave him a call.

_“Did you flee the city just to escape me?”_

_“No! No, not at all, I just— You were right, I need a fresh start. I-I just… I don’t think I can get one there, I need to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. To get to know myself. Who— Who I am without just clinging to other people’s coattails.”_

_“Don’t worry about it, Jon, I’m only joking. Where’s it you wound up?”_

Moving to London had been a good decision, at the time. Taking a docent position at the Natural History Museum while working on his dissertation was a _good_ decision. Jon wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

_(He still wouldn’t. Days like this, he misses it more than almost anything. There’s always something at the top of that list; he misses walking without_ as much _pain. He misses talking without as much judgment. He misses being excited to live out each day as it came, instead of being afraid to.)_

And it was — nice, to have someone new to talk to through it that Georgie hadn’t introduced him to, or that he hadn’t shared classes with and resented for whatever stupid thing they raised their hand to say. Jon complained about his Craigslist flatmate, _Colin,_ and Delevan complained about being back home with extended family that didn’t know how to stay out of his house. Delevan didn’t have much time to himself even after graduating once he started working at his uncle’s restaurant, and Jon didn’t have much time between the museum and his dissertation, but they managed to meet up a handful of times. When Jon stopped feeling like the only connections he could maintain were from a distance. When he wanted to sit with someone he felt warmly towards, even just a little bit. Colin wasn’t the best company, and he certainly had no affection to offer.

Delevan warned him in advance before his family took a trip to the museum for his little cousin’s birthday, and said he hoped they would at least be able to catch each other in passing. It sounded doable, nice even, but when Jon came into work and was tasked with touring the army of small ginger children — one of whom perched on Delevan’s shoulders — he did have a small heart attack.

At first, he thought he might just _die_ of embarrassment. He thought about being angry, or trying to switch groups with a coworker, but there were some things you just have to muscle through. It got easier when he convinced himself to embrace face blindness again and just taught the children about dinosaur bones and the restless surface of the Earth, sinking into his element in spite of whose eyes were on him. Easy enough, in fact, that when Delevan thanked him with a kiss on the cheek before catching up to his family on their way out, Jon was relaxed enough to accept it with a smile.

He went home that day wondering if all this meant he was cured or something. Not that he’d worked through everything that ended his _last_ relationship, much less in the sense that he was gearing up to initiate a new one right away. Rather, that it would still be possible, if he wanted to someday. That he hadn’t faded into complete obscurity just because he’d lost one love, one circle of friends, one place. He didn’t need to _remind_ himself to breathe so much anymore.

Without the constant reminder that he could run into Georgie around any random corner and risk catching that glimmer of disdain in her eyes from his most annoying waking nightmares, he hadn’t needed to check inside his wallet quite so often. The photograph was still there, folded neatly but wearing at the very edges from flipping past it to reach his money or his ID.

What would Delevan say if he knew that he still carried something like that around? Jon couldn’t imagine that he’d be all that judgmental. He’d gone through some rough breakups himself, the sort that made him believe the world might end or that getting out of bed might kill him if it didn’t. Jon couldn’t judge him for that, if he couldn’t understand. Georgie had tried so hard not to leave him feeling the way she’d felt when he found her.

But he thought he could make it, actually. That he could still be brave if he was by himself.

He’d gotten himself this far, after all. He’d found his footing, and he had his own friends. A boy had kissed him like he wanted to kiss him differently, like he thought about it when their knees pressed together as they took up a cramped, secondhand loveseat. Jon reasoned that maybe it would be nice to beat him to it. He’d thought about it, too. 

He just didn’t know how long he was supposed to wait. How was a healing process like this supposed to go? Was he supposed to grieve longer? Would Georgie mind? Or would she congratulate him on catching the attention of somebody they both agreed on, once?

The problem is that this was the sort of thing most people ran to tell their best friend. Was it… wrong, to still think of her that way? Leo was Georgie’s best friend, and some part of Jon rebelled against reaching out to Alma because of it. Had he even left a dent by drifting, or was it just — inevitable?

This is why he kept the photo. Those kinds of questions. The warning signs of that kind of pain. But was he only thinking about it _because_ he’d looked at it again? Had the countermeasure countered itself and become the catalyst for everything it was meant to keep at bay?

It was a perfect photo, but their eyes were wet. Jon plucked the paper from his wallet and gave it one last, long look before he folded it back up, and found the shoebox of things he kept in his closet.

One day. He’d try leaving it there for one day, and see how he fared without it. If it worked, then he could consider one mountain moved.

That, at least, he knew Georgie wouldn’t mind at all.

───── ✿ ─────

**Author's Note:**

> i don't want to give jon any _traumatic_ experiences when it comes to this aspect of his life. just learning experiences.
> 
> ( [little reference of delevan](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/795528665352896522/800129951335448576/delevan.png) using [this picrew](https://picrew.me/image_maker/457566)! sans his cheek scar. his name means "proud, bright friend" ;v; )
> 
> spot the repeated line from [TSP](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22189123/chapters/52974727)! because i'm absolutely insufferable and i cannot, nor will i ever, stop. anyone who's familiar with it should be able to guess where i'm going next with the **gender** prompt... :-)
> 
> [[jon sims bi pride tumblr](http://jonsimsbipride.tumblr.com/)] | [[my tumblr](http://gerrydelano.tumblr.com/)] | [[ GTCU masterpost](https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/14KlgPfOb16ocGj8k0QrElw6UY0SqoNeH2yTj_zQ31bA/edit#)]


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